Tag: Challenge

It Was the Singing

Muni-bus-packed-with-kids-by-Alie-Slavin

There is a poem by Ian Crichton Smith

TWO GIRLS SINGING

It neither was the words nor yet the tune

Any tune would have done and any words.

Any listener at all.

As nightingales in rocks or a child crooning

in its own world of strange awakening

or larks for no reason but themselves.

So on the bus through late November running

by yellow lights tormented, darkness falling,

the two girls sang for miles and miles together

and it wasn’t the words or the tune. It was the singing.

It was the human sweetness in that yellow,

the unpredicted voices of our kind.

Source: Scottish Poem Book

May you find yourself, this day, together with another – singing.

Singing with raucous voice released by darkness and adventure and the courage that comes with company,

In the human sweetness, with the unpredicted voices of shared struggle and shared hope.

Amen.

bus-etiquette-300x157

Hospitality

Welcome Mat

In my tradition

wrong or right

we teach one another to

invite Jesus into your heart

or

into your life.

(Though it might be better said

that Jesus invites us all into His life

is a blog post for another time.)

Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. ~Luke 10:38

Hospitality was the first virtue of Christendom.

It is really quite simple.

Make the stranger feel at home in your home.  Put the tired traveler at ease.

But today we are terrified. Paranoid. Worried over many things.

All the doors are bolted; even the ones to our heart.

Convinced that the stranger is only after what is ours we build motels and hotels for our peers

and with our imagination play “pretend like -” to create fairy tale make believe shelters big enough for all the homeless people where taxes and charities and 1 per centers dig deep to provide food, clothes, showers. Then sleep easy in our dreamland.

The art and practice of hospitality has been lost.

 the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. ~Luke 10:41 

The service of hospitality.

All that was needed was for one to welcome Jesus into their home: this is heart and life.

Welcomed into the vault where we lock up all our treasures.

A beautiful sentiment lost on a generation far away from all things hospitable.

Because, how do we tell ourselves: our friends and children

Invite Jesus into your heart!  Welcome Jesus into your life!

when we no longer know how to entertain a guest? what to do with the stranger?

They have no idea what inviting anyone into their life should look like.

So…

Would Jesus even feel comfortable in your life?

Does He feel “in the way”?  A bother?  “Asking too much?”

How often is this guest attended to, and what is not provided or offered because of the silent politeness of the visitor?

What would a heart and life look like if we actually tried to make Jesus “feel at home”.

I think we’ve left Jesus on the front porch.

“Don’t worry. It’s screened-in. The mosquitos won’t get him.”

“We’ll bring him some iced tea and a few magazines.”

“Make yourself at home” isn’t hospitable. It’s neglect with a polite smile.

She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying…”there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.” ~ Luke 10:39,42

Hospitality

Seasons

It isn’t as if the world had slipped out of God’s hands.

Sometimes what we react to is the sense that our hands have slipped off the wheel.

 

But we believe in history.

The world is not a roll of the dice

On its way toward chaos.

A new world is always emerging

Spring to Summer to Fall to Winter to Spring again.

 

A God who knows sorrow and pain

A God who knows what it is to have enemies and soul bonded friends

Hate failed when

You become the definitive smile for humankind.

 

We accept the struggles and challenges.

 

We march on in the moment mindful that we are exploring the future with every passing minute. And that we do not go on this journey alone.

You are with us. You are eternal.

 

Beyond the crushing of the day’s gravity,

There is the shout of victory when the sun goes down and we are still standing up!

 

So teach us to give voice

To our new life always emerging

Because the tears of stress

And the fear of the unknown will disappear

Like seasons that pass.

 

Like we are in the changing seasons,

You are in our changing lives

 

Ever present.

Amen.mountains in four seasons